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JSiblc IReafctngs 

DELIVERED BY REV. E. I. D. PEPPER IN THE PHIL- 
ADELPHIA FRIDAY .MEETING. COLLECTED AND 
ARRANGED BY EVANGELIST E. L. HYDE 




REV. E. I. D. PEPPER. 



SPICES FROM 
THE LORD'S GARDEN 

Bible Headings 



DELIVERED BY 



Rev. E. I. D. PEPPER 

IN THE PHILADELPHIA FRIDAY MEETING. 



COLLECTED AND ARRANGED BY 

EVANGELIST E. L. HYDE. 



Agents Wanted. 

Address E. L. HYDE, West Conshohocken, Pa. 




CONTENTS. 




■.'75* 



Never-the-less, - 5 

Real Christlikeness, - - - - 10 

The Life is the Light, - - - - 16 

Christ-like Conversation, - - - - 21 

Holy Ghost Guidance, - 26 

Assurance in Emergencies, - - - 32 

At Home in the Heavenlies, - - - 37 

Our Marvelous Salvation, - - - - 43 

The True Relatives of Jesus, - - 48 

Self-Pity, - - - - - - -54 

Humility Greater than Love, 59 

Grounds of Personal Trust, - - 63 

A Prosperous Journey, - 68 

The Bible in Hot Hearts, - - - 74 

God Gives to Those Who Have, - - 79 



PREFACE. 



These Bible Readings were almost extemporaneous, 
although some of the trains of thought were familiar to 
the speaker. They were not written and read, but 
spoken and reported. While the reports of extempo- 
raneous addresses may not be as satisfactory in all re- 
spects as carefully-written discourses, yet they may 
convey to the reader more of the life and force of pub- 
lic speech. Brother Pepper could not sufficiently recol- 
lect what he had said to make any extensive correc- 
tion, but has consented to the publication of these 

Bible Readings in this form. 

E. L. Hyde. 



"NEVER-THE=LESS." 

Feb. 22, 1894. 

Text: Luke 18 : 8. 

This word "nevertheless" is a remarkable 
word. It is three words in one. It comes in 
after a very difficult problem has been stated ; 
or after great difficulties have been encoun- 
tered ; or after great deliverances have been 
wrought out ; while our adversaries are about 
us ; or after all our adversaries have been de- 
feated. It emphatically declares : Neverthe- 
less, the truth is not made any the less ; the 
truth has not been damaged ; the facts remain 
the same ; no matter what seems to contradict 
them. " Nevertheless when the Son of man 
cometh, shall he find faith on the earth ? " I 
am sorry this grand word comes in here on the 
wrong and reproachful side for some of us. 
Read verses 2-5 : " Because this widow trou- 
bleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual 
coming she weary me." That is the saying of 
an "unjust judge," one who "feared not God, 
neither regarded man ; " an unjust man acting 
as a judge, making a travesty of justice, and 
yet he would do this favor for this woman, lest 
she weary him. " And shall not God avenge his 
own elect, which cry day and night unto him, 
though He bear long with them ? " It is divinity 



as over against humanity ; infinite justice as 
over against human injustice ; such injustice as 
neither feared God nor regarded man. It is 
God over against that unjust judge. If that 
man would avenge that poor widow, to get rid 
of her, how much more will God avenge us who 
are His own elect ? We get scared ! Our 
adversaries are after us ! We plead arid im- 
portune with God ! He comes to our rescue 
again and again in our sorest extremity ! 
" Nevertheless, when the Son of man cometh, 
shall he find faith on the earth?" When He 
comes to us, even after such marvelous deliv- 
erances, shall He find faith in us ? 

Oh how hard it is to teach us this lesson ! 
that God has been a prayer-hearing and a 
prayer-answering God since the dawn of crea- 
tion, and that He has often answered the 
prayers of others and our own. We are not 
the judges of God's providences ; or of what 
things are to be done under certain circum- 
stances. These things that we know not now, 
will unfold with the ages. The time will come 
when, standing in the white light of heaven, we 
will find this question answered : " Shall not 
the Judge of all the earth do right?" Our 
hearts too often get cast down ; we are op- 
pressed, persecuted and troubled ; " all these 
things are against us ; " then we resolve our- 
selves into that old interrogation point, 
" Why ? " " Why must this happen ? I never 



loved God as I do now ; I never was so con- 
scious that I am living to God's glory as I am 
now ; yet with all that why has God permitted 
this ? When I was a sinner things seemed to go 
better than they do now ; when I was a smoky, 
joky member of the church, things seemed 
to go better ; but as soon as I gave myself to 
God fully, how the difficulties gathered about 
me ! " How often sad and plaintive letters 
like this come to our office : "I am the only 
one who is standing for holiness in our church ; 
I can only look up to God and trust God, but 
why ? " Ah, over all this, through all this, the 
Judge of all the earth is doing right! The hour 
is coming in your history when the whole thing 
that you understand not now, and groan under 
now, will be explained under the light of the 
Great White Throne, and an abundant entrance 
will be administered to you into the kingdom 
of heaven. 

Ought we not to be ashamed of ourselves 
that this lesson of faith has to be taught us 
again and again ? Do we not remember when 
we were poor sinners; when as the old preachers 
used to say, "we were hair-hung and breeze- 
shaken over the pit of hell ? " How we cried ! 
How our food was tasteless and our nights 
were restless ! But just when we were in de- 
spair, then the Lord forgave, then the burden 
rolled off, and then all our mourning was 
turned into rejoicing. 



Then in all the after years the Lord has 
guided our way and provided for our needs. 
Oh, if we would only stop looking- at our 
troubles to look at our mercies ! What prayers 
have been answered ! What precious seasons 
we have seen ! What blessings we have felt ! 
How our hearts have been lifted up and lit up, 
and the darkness has gone ! It would be a 
good thing to keep a ledger, — to take an in- 
ventory of prayers that have been answered. 
We ought to make a note of answered prayers. 
If we just keep some little account with God, 
and measure all the lovingkindnesses and 
tender mercies that have come to us in answer 
to prayer, we could then measure Christ's re- 
proachful question : " Nevertheless, when the 
Son of Man cometh, shall He find faith on the 
earth ? " Shall he find faith in us ? 

Do you remember, too, after you said that 
you " did not believe there was sin in believers," 
and that you " could not understand the repen- 
tance of believers," how the Holy Ghost un- 
capped your soul, and you went down into 
your motives, and found vanity, worldliness, 
ill-humors and all that dreadful brood of inward 
vipers ? Do you remember when the cleansing 
blood came, and the fire of the Holy Ghost 
burned out your sin and uncleanness, and 
made you " whiter than snow? " 

Do you remember, too, all the prayers that 
have since been answered, all your importunate 



prayers ; yea, even your ejaculatory prayers ? 
What ails you ? A man does not go into a 
dark room and take a broom and sweep the 
darkness out. He opens the door and lets the 
light in, and — the darknesss is gone ! Lord, 
take us back ! Wipe out that " nevertheless " 
against us. I could get a lot of trouble up in 
five minutes if I wanted to, but I do not propose 
to ! I propose to believe right through. I pro- 
pose to keep on saying, "Glory, anyhow!" 
Get your faith in good exercise right there. 
Keep saying, " Lord, I do not know or under- 
stand anything about it — glory anyhow ! " Are 
we believers ; believers in fact ? 



10 



REAL CHRISTLIKENESS. 

March I, 1894. 

Text : Luke 20 ; 1-8. • 

We are to be Christ-like, but let us not be 
mistaken as to what Christ-likeness is. Let us 
not get an exquisite and namby-pamby sort of 
an idea of Christ-likeness. We must remem- 
ber that the Apostle John was called the loving 
and beloved disciple, yet he was the plainest 
spoken man among them all. I once heard 
Rev. Andrew Longacre preach a sermon on 
" saintliness." It depicted an earnest, practical, 
true, honorable, honest, faithful, diligent and 
entirely consecrated life, within and without. 
It was, indeed, a charming picture ; but its 
great charm was in its every-day practicability. 

I wish we could please everybody ; I wish I 
might tell you that you could ; but if we think 
we can, we are sure to find soon that we have 
been mistaken. A man who is converted 
thinks that all he has to do is to tell how happy 
he is, and that then everybody will hug him up 
and become converted too ; but he soon finds 
his mistake. The same with a person who has 
been entirely sanctified. He resolves to show 
forth perfect love by his unexceptionable life ; 
he makes up his mind to be careful, to be 



11 



heavenly-minded, to be gentle-spirited, to be 
very prudent. He says to himself and to 
others: " I will try to demonstrate this thing 
in every proper way, and so win others into 
the experience ; " but he forgets how long it 
was that the light failed to get into his mind 
and conscience and heart ; he forgets how long 
others patiently bore with him ; how long some 
of the sweetest saints of God labored and 
talked with him ; how this went on for days 
and months and years, and that his spirit was 
getting worse all the time. 

The people mentioned in our text did not all 
of them accept Christ ; some did ; some of the 
church members did ; but the narrative tells us 
that some of the heads of the Church " came 
upon him." Could any one preach the gospel 
of Christ better than Christ himself? Did not 
Christ speak as never man spake? And yet 
the gospel of Christ, preached with the spirit 
of Christ and with marvelous love, what effect 
did it have ? The heads of ecclesiastical de- 
partments " came upon Him." 

I do not know how we will be treated by all 
people, or by all the ministry, or even by all 
the heads of the Church. Those who came 
upon Christ knew more about " authority " 
than about "baptisms from heaven." If a min- 
ister is in for show and popularity and position, 
and is concerned more about "authority" 
than about baptisms from heaven, we may 



12 

not find a cordial reception from him for a 
Christ like spirit or for Christ-like words ; for 
Christ-likeness is the very opposite to all that. 

We must get away beyond the desire to be 
tickled with greetings in the market-place (pop- 
ularity) ; to walk in long robes (show) ; to 
occupy the chief seats in the synagogues and 
in the chief rooms (ambition). We have some- 
times to get away from the question of "Who 
gave thee this authority ? " We have to get 
out where we can hear the voice of the Spirit 
of God. There are people who will not believe 
it ; but there is an experience in which praise 
or blame are rated according to their just merit, 
and when a Christ-like man finds his praise 
beyond what he ought to have, his sanctified 
soul rejects it. That is a state of independence. 
We need not go out of the Church to find it or 
away from the priests. Christ did not go out 
of the Church ; Christ recognized the priest- 
hood, degenerate as it was then ; Christ ordered 
those who wanted to be cleansed to go and 
shew themselves to the priests ; nevertheless 
He went right straight on, preferring "bap- 
tisms from heaven " to technical questions of 
authority. 

Is there not something pathetic, sublimely 
pathetic in that verse 13? — "I will send my 
beloved Son : it may be they will reverence 
Him when they see Him." Oh, to look in those 
divine eyes, to look upon that divine person, 



13 

to see Christ Himself, to hear the words that 
fell from the lips of Him that " spake as never 
man spake ! " Could anybody help but rever- 
ence Him ? Yet what was the result ? " This 
is the heir ; let us kill Him. Then the inherit- 
ance will be ours." They withstood Him be- 
cause they feared His influence on their au- 
thority. He perceived their craftiness They 
could not take hold of His words before the 
people, and they marvelled at his answers, and 
held their peace. They could not tempt Him 
by the flattery that He accepted no man's per- 
son, but taught the way of God truly. 

Let us get where, when there is a question 
between authority and " baptisms from heaven," 
we will be on the side of " baptisms from 
heaven " every time. These positions on earth 
are unreliable, they are of the earth earthy, 
and, like the earth, they pass away. We are 
rushing through time to the end of the world, 
when all these things shall be burned up. 
Then what will remain will be eternal. What 
we are building inside will outlast what we are 
building on the outside. " The earth shall 
pass away." Then many things that seem now 
so important to men will be seen to be nothing 
at all, and worse than nothing, and vanity. 
Then will come the dawn of eternity and the 
vision of God. Then what will remain forever 
will be permanence of character — of Christ-like 
character. Then will be heard those solemn 



14 

and final words, " He that is unjust let him be 
unjust still, and he that is holy let him be holy 
still." 

Lord make me true ! deliver me from mere 
show ! deliver me from ambition and craving 
for popularity ! deliver me from being tickled 
away from the truth ! Oh, I get sick of this 
over-weening "authority " fever ! " By what 
authority? " Even the disciples got it. Once 
they said, " He followeth not us, — stop Him ! " 
Authority is right, but not when used against 
real " baptisms from heaven." 

All I want is just to put Jesus before you. I 
want you to get the right idea of Him just as 
He was, faithful, fearless, outspoken, firm for 
the truth. Now let us be " in Christ's stead." 
Let us be Christ-like. Oh, to be where we are 
not afraid to be true, no matter what comes ; to 
ge^t where, after receiving the baptism of the 
Holy Ghost, as well as the baptism of John, 
when the question comes, " By what authority 
doest thou these things ? " we can say, " I do it 
by the authority of my baptism from heaven." 
When we get there we will be like Christ was. 
In these days we need these refreshings from 
the presence of the Lord ; these unctuous times, 
when our hearts are melted down and our 
minds are clarified with light, and we see 
things as God sees them ; when ourselves and 
our personal advantages and our desire for 
show and popularity go out, and there comes 



15 



in that spirit that can weigh all those things in 
the balance of eternity. 

I wake up at midnight, and these things 
come into my mind. I will soon be gone. I 
do not know how soon. I sometimes think of 
things I did in my boyhood and in youth and 
in manhood, and even since I have been in the 
ministry, with humiliation ; but I would like 
before I go into the presence of that Omniscient 
eye to be thoroughly true. I want to see my- 
self as God sees me, and as the universe shall 
see me. I want the past to go under the blood 
and into oblivion. I love to go deep through 
my own soul. I never stop telling a truth 
because it goes through me. 



16 



THE LIFE IS THE LIGHT. 

March 29, 1894. 

Text : John i : 4. 

Christ is the source of all life. He is the 
source of all natural life. Listen to these 
strange words, " In the beginning was the 
Word, and the Word was with God, and the 
Word was God. The same was in the begin- 
ning with God. All things were made by Him ; 
and without Him was not anything made that 
was made." The Word was in the beginning. 
The Word was the Creator of all things. 
Jesus Christ is the Word. He was in the be- 
ginning. He is the source of all natural life. 

But then He is just as much, being God, the 
source of spiritual life, of all spiritual life, and 
the source of all eternal life. "In Him was 
life, and the life was the light of men." 

The point I want to make is this : Jesus 
Christ, in Himself, is the source of all spiritual 
life ; that Christ dwells in us ; that He is the 
source of our spiritual life. Our religious ex- 
perience from beginning to end, from the time 
we were born again throughout all eternity, is 
from Christ, in Christ and by Christ. That life 
is our "light." Do you know that we get 
more true light, more white light, more reliable 
light, the only truly valuable light we get on 



17 

religious experience, from an inward religious 
experience that comes from Christ ? When 
souls are first converted we are often afraid of 
them, afraid they will come to harm, afraid to 
let them go out into the world ; we fairly push 
books into their hands, and bid them, " Read 
this, or this ! " for fear they will go astray. 
That is all right ; but do you know, when I' 
was converted to God when a boy, I had a light 
that was as clear, I do not know but that it 
was brighter, than when I left the child-experi- 
ence behind ? I declare there is something 
wonderful in this Christ-like light The light 
that comes from the new experience in the 
things of God, how wonderful it is ! How ten- 
der it is ! How conscientious it is ! How it 
shrinks back from sin ! Some who were con- 
verted at the beginning, but who somehow 
have lost it out of their souls, will allow them- 
selves to do or think or feel or say things that 
they would not have done when they were first 
converted. Oh, for the tenderness of con- 
science of a new convert ! 

So it is when persons are entirely sanctified. 
We are almost afraid to let them go out of the 
Church where they have just come into the ex- 
perience. Ah, there is a life in them that 
accords with that Bible, and that life is their 
light. Just let a man become clear on entire 
sanctification, and how his brain clears up ! 
Everything seems to be right. The incoming 



18 

of that life, that experience of perfect love, 
solved his problems, enlightened his perplex- 
ities, took his doubts out of his mind and the 
hesitation out of his soul, and he could tell you 
more of sanctification in that moment than he 
could from all the theological books that he had 
ever read. But let him let slip a little, what is 
the result ? What is the matter with his brain ? 
The life is gone out ; the deep, Christ-like, 
spiritual life, which was his light, has grown 
dim. 

Christ is the Light of the world. He shines 
on every soul. Some know Him not. Some 
reject Him, and, in rejecting Him, light goes 
out of their minds, and doubt comes into their 
souls at once. But to them tliat receive Him, 
to them He gives the power, the right, the 
privilege to become the sons of God. 

Read that 47th verse, "No guile." What a 
beautiful word ! " Guileless." Guiltless is a 
great, good thing! but oh, what is "guile- 
less?" Only the difference of a letter. The 
very word " guileless " has a sort of bell-like 
music in it. This Nathaniel experience is ex- 
actly what I am talking about, — " no guile." 
That guileless spirit comes from Christ. "In 
Him was life, and the life was the light of men." 

I declare, if I were asked which to do for a 
person who desired to be entirely sanctified, if 
there were a pile of books on the subject on the 
one side, and on the other a deep interior life 



19 

that comes from Christ, I would rather turn 
him loose without a book (except the Bible) ; 
for His life is our light. Not simply Christ's 
example is our light, though that is true, of 
course ; but I am speaking of Christ as the 
source of spiritual "life," and the "light" that 
comes therefrom. Do you see it ? Oh, to 
have the Divine Godhead, the Father, Son and 
Holy Ghost, in our hearts to enlighten our 
minds, to guide our footsteps, to keep us from 
error ! 

You go to a new convert and tell him, "You 
can do so and so, — it is no harm, — preachers 
do it.'' He will say, "It somehow does not 
chime right with the Word." That Word is 
" hid from the wise and prudent, and revealed 
unto babes." " Something inside," says he, 
" tells me not to think or feel or say or do that 
thing. I am not much at argument ; but I do 
understand my own soul." 

How this simplifies everything ! A man 
cannot carry his library around on his back ; 
but he can carry God in his heart. He has the 
whole Divine library in his heart and brain 
wherever he goes. I do not wonder that the 
Quakers talk about the " Inward Monitor." 

Is it not a blessed thing that, while Christ 
says his converts are " lambs among wolves," 
and while we do not want to turn them out 
there among the wolves, yet somehow they are 
not torn to pieces ? Can you imagine me, with 



20 

my little one looking up into my eye with 
trustful happiness, can you imagine me leading 
her where she would get hurt ? Do you believe 
that ? No, you do not ! 

Let us trust ourselves to God ! Let us get 
right in our hearts ! Let us move in the light 
of that deeply interior experience ! 

I do not know much outside of that. I have 
unlearned many things. How the thing is all 
simplified down ! I gave nearly all my library 
away long ago to poor young preachers ; but I 
have God in my soul ; I have Christ in my 
soul ; I have the Holy Ghost in my soul. I 
have an inner life. I have an inner light. That 
light comes from the Life. I am glad that the 
way to heaven is not through a theological 
seminary. It is through God and Christ and 
the Holy Ghost. I am so glad it is so simple. 
Glory be to God ! Is there anybody here who 
has just entered the new experience of conver- 
sion ? Do not get scared if you have Christ 
in your soul. Is there any one just trembling 
in the new experience of entire sanctification ? 
Do not get scared because you do not know 
much or have not read much. He is teaching 
you. Stick to him ! 



21 



CHRIST-LIKE CONVERSATION. 

April 5, 1S94. 

Text : John 4 : 27 : " Why talkest thou with 
her?" 

What a grand thing it would be if every con- 
versation had as good an answer to the " why ? " 
as that one with this woman had. Oh, how 
much talk there is that is only about folly ! And 
how much talk about nothing at all, and about 
something worse even than that, — Lord, help 
us ! How these tongues of ours go ! That 
was a conversation which Christ had with this 
woman. 

It occurred to me to look for the answer to 
the "why?" and see what the conversation 
was about. There are three points in this con- 
versation of Christ that are very striking and 
beautiful, and which bring out the " why " and 
the "end" and the "object" of a Christ-like 
conversation. 

The first thing He talked about was His own 
inexhaustible sufficiency. " Jesus answered 
and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this 
water shall thirst again ; but whosoever (mark 
that ' whosoever ') drinketh of the water that 
I shall give him shall never thirst ; but the 
water that I shall give him shall be in him (in 



22 

him — mark that !) a well of water springing up 
into everlasting life." In those eastern coun- 
tries those old-time wells were inexpressibly 
valuable. They fought for them. A great 
rock-well is valuable in any place. Some fight 
for them now. But here is a man that carries 
the well of water around with Him. Nobody to 
interfere with Him. A well of living water 
" springing up into everlasting life." Oh, the 
inexhaustible sufficiency of Christ ! Not stag- 
nant, but living water. Flowing on forever. 

Another thing He talked about was the Di- 
vine spirituality, and the spirituality and truth- 
fulness of our worship. Spirituality and reality. 
" God is a Spirit ; and they that worship Him 
must worship Him in spirit and in truth." We 
must be honest to worship God ; we must be 
truthful to worship God ; we must have deep, 
intense, real spirituality to worship God. How 
far removed is this from what passes for wor- 
ship in these days ? Family worship, social 
worship, public worship, must have some form ; 
but oh, how far — as " far as the east is from the 
west " — is our formality from this spirituality 
and our falsity from this truthfulness ; this 
coming into the reality of God ; this sinking 
into the spirituality of God ; this worshipping 
God in His own nature ! Electricity strikes.. 
Spirituality is not a tedious thing. We do not 
have to go over many words. It strikes right 
to the heart. It strikes from the Divine heart, 



23 

and goes right to our hearts. O deep, true 
spiritual worship ! where every time is holy 
time, every place is holy ground, and every 
avocation is a holy vocation. Everywhere we 
are, there is in us this deep spirituality, and this 
transparent honesty that can bear to come into 
the divine Presence and say, "Search me, O 
God, and know my heart : try me, and know 
my thoughts." That is a wonderful prayer. 
Do you think you could say to-day, " Search 
me, O God ? " Could you talk that way to God ? 
Then you are coming into downright- honesty 
with your own conscience, with everybody, and 
better than all else, with God. 

Christ talked also about moral and religious 
living. He told this woman all that ever she 
did. Somebody says that "some people are 
religious, but not always very moral." There 
is no possibility of severing religion from 
morality. There is a deception somewhere. 
This woman had not been good, and there is a 
searchingness in the conversation between the 
two that is Christ-like. There is something in 
it that goes through and through the con- 
science, and through and through the most 
hidden avenues of the human soul. A man 
may not be conscious that he is ploughing up 
another man's soul. That is the reason many 
go away from hearing a sermon and say, 
" Somebody has been telling that preacher all 
about me." 



24 

But there is a higher life than merely not 
doing wrong, Jesus said, "I have meat to eat 
that ye know not of." He had had His meal. 
That is a little different from people on a camp- 
meeting ground, running when they hear the 
dinner-bell. It is a rising into the Christ-like 
spirit, whose "meat is to do the will of Him 
that sent me." It is self-forgetfulness. I said 
He had had His meal ; but nobody had given 
him anything. He had only had the spiritual 
sustenance from heaven. There is a sublimity, 
a Christ-like sublimity, in that making the 
doing of our Father's will our very meat, what 
we live on. 

But there is something beyond that. It is 
fruit. Christ also spoke of the near harvest 
and of the need of laborers. The salvation of 
others was also his theme. Jesus Christ came 
into the world to save sinners. That is all He 
did come for. He had no other inducement. 
That is what we ought to be doing. That is the 
make-up of a Christ-like conversation. Oh, if 
we would only turn over our conversations 
from the negative to the positive, from the 
inferior to the superior, from the damaging to 
the saving. 

If only our souls could rise into a higher 
atmosphere. " Out of the abundance of a 
good heart the mouth speaketh." The heart 
spontaneously talks about what fills it. It is 
not by constraint. No, it is to get the brain 



25 



right ; it is to get the heart right ; then, without 
constraint, just out of the abundance of a 
good heart, to pour it out. When a man binds 
himself up to act a certain way, and to talk a 
certain way, he is likely to talk that way at one 
time, and another way at another time ; but 
when he has "in him" this Christ-like spirit, 
this well of water, he will just pour it out. I 
want Christ in me, so that somehow He will 
talk Himself and live Himself. I believe He is 
in me, and talks and lives through me. 



26 



HOLY GHOST GUIDANCE. 

May 24, 1894. 

Text: Acts 16 : 6-10. 

The Spirit is not directing us to go every- 
where that we may at first think He is. In my 
text the Spirit forbids them to go to one place ; 
"suffered them not" to go to another place, 
but some way induced them to go to a third 
place. 

The Holy Spirit is Omnipresent, Omniscient, 
Omnipotent. He is the executive of the God- 
head. We are under His more immediate dis- 
pensation, and we must not distrust and dis- 
honor Him. We must not discount His func- 
tions and His work. Now, I sometimes think, 
we are a little afraid along this line. Persons 
say, " The Lord said thus and so to me ; He 
told me to go here or there," and instantly we 
are afraid of fanaticism. But the divine per- 
sonal Holy Ghost, if He please, can say some 
things to us. The divine personal Holy Ghost, 
if we will let Him, can restrain us from going 
where we ought not, and the divine personal 
Holy Ghost can get us where He wants us if 
we only let Him. Now do not flinch ! 

How is that done ? I do not know, but that 
does not argue against the fact. How does a 



27 

child grow? We cannot tell, but, — the child 
grows ! John Wesley says, in regard to the 
Trinity, all our troubles are in reference to the 
"how? "and not the "what." Our business 
is with the revealed fact. Herein is a marvel- 
ous thing : This singular thing we call the 
human voice ; we cannot see it, but we hear it. 
I stand in this pulpit and my voice goes out 
through my lips, and gets into your ears, and 
in some singular way produces impressions on 
your brain, on your heart and conscience, and 
on your whole life. It is a creature talking to 
his fellow creature. I cannot tell what the 
human voice is or how it gets into your ears 
and impresses your brain. I may be produc- 
ing impressions now that will be as eternal as 
God Himself. Herein is a marvelous thing if 
a creature can influence the creature, and yet 
the Creator cannot influence the creature ! 
You see the absurdity of that. 

The Spirit can do this indirectly through 
persons and through the Word. I know that 
He never influences us to do anything con- 
trary to that Word ; but, at the same time, the 
divine personal Holy Ghost can talk to me in 
the darkness of the midnight hour ; He can fill 
my mind with the most delightful, profitable, 
deeply spiritual, heavenly things. I can be 
just as distinctly conscious that I am commun- 
ing with the Holy Ghost and He with me as I 



28 

can be now conscious that I am communicating 
with you. 

But you ask, " What about impulses and 
impressions ? So many difficulties come from 
following these ! " I know it. I am walking a 
hair line just here. I know that dreadful things 
result along the line of flying off at a tangent. 
I know the dreadful things resulting from mis- 
taking our own impulses for the Divine im- 
pulses ; but to be intensely spiritual is to be 
exactly Scriptural, and to be exactly Scriptural 
is to be intensely spiritual. I will hazard this 
statement : If we could go down through all 
the mysteries and vagaries of impulses, we 
would find that those who were merely follow- 
ing their own impulses had, in some way, de- 
parted from the clear teaching of that Word. 
They make the Holy Ghost responsible for 
nonsense. 

But, on the other hand, what is the witness 
of the Holy Spirit to my spirit that I am a 
child of God ? Do I read the Bible and infer 
from that I am a child of God ? We do not 
tea'ch that. We do not tell a man to read a 
lot of books, or to put himself to the proof, or 
to go into a lot of arguments with himself to 
prove that he is a child of God. Our religion 
is not a religion of speculation ; it is a religion 
of consciousness, of knowledge. It is the Holy 
Ghost saying to this man, " The sins of thy 
life time are forgiven ; they are behind My 



29 



back ! " and the man knows it. How does he 
know it ? I do not know. 

As it is in regard to the witness of the Spirit 
to salvation, so is it in the matter of divine 
guidance. Jesus Christ says, " My sheep 
know my voice." I must however insist upon 
it that, if we are under the influence of the 
divine personal Holy Ghost, He keeps us al- 
ways along Scriptural lines. Just as quickly 
as a man departs from the Word of God he 
may talk about spirituality ; but what does he 
know of spirituality except from the Bible ? 
There are three prominent facts in this lesson : 
They ""were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to 
preach the word in Asia ; " " the Spirit suffered 
them not" to go into Bithynia ; and when the 
call came from Macedonia away they went. 

I want to call your attention to how this led 
on, — not to what you might call great congre- 
gations and brilliant work, — but it led on to the 
meeting with the woman " whose heart the 
Lord opened." When they got through with 
that woman, they were led on to quite a 
different ministry. They were led to the woman 
possessed of the spirit of divination. Then 
they were led on to the prison, the cruel prison, 
and the stocks, and the lash, and the midnight 
praises. 

Oh, when we get under the influence of the 
Holy Ghost, when we get pliable, not fanatical, 
He can tell us things He cannot tell to every 



30 



one, and He can trust us as He could not trust 
everybody. When He gets us into communion 
and fellowship with Himself, the mind and 
heart get into an impressible condition, a man- 
ageable condition. Have you known occasions 
when the Holy Ghost restrained you ? (Brother 
Thompson : I have, consciously.) Have you 
had the experience where you have known 
exactly where you ought to go ? (Bro. Thomp- 
son : I surely have had such experiences.) In 
these days of fanaticism and ritualism, in these 
days of materialism and externalism, we want 
something deeply interior, intensely spiritual. 
We want something that can make the best 
use of forms without being crippled by forms. 
We want the divine personal Holy Ghost to do 
just what the Bible says He will do, come into 
us and dwell in us, so that these bodies will 
be moving sanctuaries, moving churches, so 
that every place becomes holy ground. Oh, 
glory be to God ! 

Where do you find the most heterodoxy ? 
In a spiritual Church ? In a singing, shouting, 
fiery, devoted, devotional Church ? You will 
find it more among " brain-y " than among 
" heart-y " people. I take history and the Bible 
for that. What has upheld the Methodist 
Church to this hour is her firm adherence to 
the Word of God and the "Witness of the 
Spirit." If Methodism ever swings clear of 
this, — which may God forbid ! — you will find 



31 



where the heterodoxy is. A man who is filled 
with the Holy Ghost has not time for hetero- 
doxy. There is a light within him that tells 
him the difference between the husks and the 
corn, the shell and the kernel, the body and the 
life. When a man gets there he never forgets 
that Jesus Christ came into the world to save 
sinners, and he goes about doing the same 
work, saving sinners. 

Our business is to be filled with the Spirit. 
Do not be afraid ! I would not let my little 
child go wrong, much less put her wrong. The 
Holy Spirit knows better than I. I am not 
going to trouble my childlike soul when I come 
to the dark, rough places, lest my Father should 
lose His nature and the Son His interest, and 
lest the Holy Spirit should let me go wrong or 
put me wrong. I will stick to the Bible and 
to the Holy Ghost. 



32 



ASSURANCE IN EMERGENCIES. 

June 7, 1894. 

Text, Acts 27 : 22-25. 

We are as the "apple of His eye." How 
quickly the lashes close to protect, and how 
quickly the hand is raised when a foreign par- 
ticle is about to invade this tender member ! 
So, as "the apple of His eye," God raises His 
hand between us and anything that could in- 
jure us. There are crises in every man's life 
when God " stands by " him. There are cli- 
maxes in every woman's life when God " stands 
by " her. What does it matter whether God 
"stands by" directly or indirectly? Some- 
times the manifestation is rather that of the 
Father's presence ; sometimes it seems that 
we are more distinctly conscious of the pres- 
ence of the Son ; then, at other times, it is the 
presence of the Holy Ghost. But, whichever 
of the Persons in the Divine Trinity is most 
consciously manifested, it is the Father, Son 
and Holy Ghost that " stand by " a man or 
woman in their emergency. What difference 
whether He " stands by " a man directly or in- 
directly ? What difference whether directly or 
through a book or a human instrument ? It is 
not a matter of great difference to God, 



33 

whether the instrument He uses is great or 
small. In this verse (23d) it says that "there 
stood by me this night the angel of God," — but 
God was back of the angel ! Not far back, 
either, not far back. 

The first thought I want you to notice is 
this ; There are great emergencies in every 
good man's life when he gets assurances from 
God, and these assurances are not simply in 
regard to himself, but regarding other people, 
too. (Verse 24), " Fear not, Paul ; thou must 
be brought before Caesar : and lo, God hath 
given thee all them that sail with thee." 
" Thou must be brought before Caesar," — that 
was in regard to himself. "God hath given 
thee all them that sail with thee," — that was for 
the others. "The old ship will soon go to 
pieces ; every board will go from beneath you, 
but no man shall lose his life ! " How angels 
could communicate that ; how do I know ? 
How angels can talk to men ; how do I know ? 
But I know this, I know that God has " stood 
by" me more than once, at the midnight hour 
and in times of distress, when there seemed no 
possible outlet ; but God was there all the 
same. 

Take the instance when those women went 
to the sepulchre, and were talking and debat- 
ing all the way as to how the stone should be 
rolled away. All their time spent in debating 
was lost, for when they got there the stone was 



34 

gone. " Fear not ! " You do not see the way 
out, but God does. You cannot see the angel 
of the Lord,* but he is standing by you. I 
think he stood by me last night. 

On what condition does God stand by holy 
men and women in emergencies, crises, cli- 
maxes in life ? 

The first condition is entire consecration, en- 
tire sanctification. "Whose I am," "There 
stood by me this night the angel of God, whose 
I am," — he had gone over, body, mind and 
soul ; Pharisaism, official position, prospects, 
everything ! He had not been afraid to give 
himself up to God, afraid he would lose posi- 
tion or popularity. Thank God, I do not belong 
to anybody else ! I am no man's man ; I am 
God's man. If a man can get himself out of 
his own clutches and the clutches of other peo- 
ple, and can reach a state of holy independence 
of everybody but God, it seems to me that the 
man ought to go wild with delight. Instead of 
holding on to this one and that one, he ought 
to feel, " God stands by me ; I belong to Him ! " 
Let us get ourselves into the hands of God. 
Let us feel that all we have and are belongs to 
God, and what belongs to Him He will look 
out for, what does not belong to Him it does 
not matter about. If you want it to be safe 
and sure, get it over into God's hands. 

Another qualification for having God " stand 
by " us, is "Whom I serve." But that follows. 



35 



That is an effect, that follows the cause, " whose 
I am." No man can " serve " God until he 
" belongs " to God, — "Whose I am." 

What was the next condition ? Sometimes 
God saves a man or a woman singly ; some- 
times their safety is in hanging together. There 
is a great deal in the fellowship of the saints ! 
"Except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be 
saved." If any man jumps overboard; if any 
man gets out of this boat, he is gone. " Ex- 
cept these abide in the ship, ye cannot be 
saved." God sent the angel to give Paul as- 
surance that not only should his life be spared, 
but every one in the ship besides. Stay on 
board ! There is safety in Christian fellowship, 
— stay on board the ship of Zion, and let the 
winds blow and the storms rage, and the waves 
roar, — stay on board ! " Except these abide in 
the ship, ye cannot be saved." It is a grand 
thing when a man feels, not only for himself 
but for his family, or for some Church, or for 
some body of Christian people, that somehow 
God puts in him an assurance of safety. " Stick 
to Me, I will stick to you. I will take care of 
you, and I will give you your sons and daugh- 
ters to be with you in the ark of safety. I will 
grant that your fatherly prayers and motherly 
intercessions shall not be lost. I will give you 
all the rest." 

The last condition is, Prayerful and praiseful 
waiting on God. Look at this picture^ Here 



36 

were these fellows scrambling over the ship, — 
some of them did not know what to do, running 
to and fro in dismay and terror. What did 
Paul do ! Why, "the angel of the Lord stood 
by him the night before," and he stood on that 
ship with the dignity of holy assurance, and 
(verse 33) " while the day was coming on, Paul 
besought them all to take meat." Brethren, 
this is a wonderful sight ! I have been at sea 
in a storm. I know what it is. Those poor 
fellows all so scared, and that man of God who, 
the night before, had been honored with the 
angel of the Lord standing by him to comfort 
him, there he stood, breaking bread. " I have 
got the assurance, None of you shall be lost." 
That is the power of a calm, quiet, holy dignity 
and assurance in God. That is the power of a 
man who, when everybody else is rushing about 
on the deck, can stand in praiseful worship. 

God knows everything. God knows every- 
body. He knows where you are, and what 
ails you, and what troubles you ; and if you 
stand by Him, He stands by you ; if he does 
not, He is false, and when God goes, all is 
gone. Oh, loose your hold upon everything 
earthly and human, but never loose your grasp 
of God ! If you loose this, what can you cling 
to ? Talk about a drowning man grasping at 
a straw ! What are you doing who grasp at 
anything but God ? God lived before anything 
else, — He is living yet. " The same yesterday, 
to-day, and forever." Hallelujah! 



37 



AT HOME IN THE HEAVENLIES. 

June 14, 1894. 

Ephesians 1 : 17-23. 

Some people think that the "high places" 
and the "holy places" and the "heavenly 
places " are the dangerous places. They are 
afraid they will get dizzy up there ; afraid they 
will tumble. I was preacher in a church once, 
and one of the members, a very carefully 
spoken man, came to me and said, " Pastor, can 
you not tell us how to be saved without being 
saved so ' high up ' ? " I told him that " if we 
were not saved 'high up,' and were not kept 
saved ' high up,' we would not be saved at all." 
Some people think that if they have so much 
trouble in keeping a little religion, they 
must, of course, have greater trouble if they 
have more. That is some people's idea of re- 
ligion. But, the fact is, the "high places " are 
the "holy places," and the "holy places" are 
the "heavenly places," and the "heavenly 
places" are the safe places. The "heavenly 
places," i. e., the heaven-like places ; places like 
heaven. There are such places. The apostle 
here is talking about heaven on earth, — about 
the " heavenly places," the places that are like 
heaven. Glory ! 



38 

A man wrote to the paper once, saying that 
the best place in all the world for him was a 
holiness meeting. I wrote an editorial on that, 
the substance of which was this, that "the best 
place in all the world for me was just where 
God wanted me to be." The best place in all 
the world is the will of God. In the will of God 
is a heaven-like place, and outside of the will 
of God it is not like heaven, not like holy places, 
not like " high places." Do you suppose that 
an angel picks out whether he will stay in 
heaven or come down to this sin-cursed earth 
when he learns the will of God ? Do you sup- 
pose that he picks out whether he will go to a 
palace or to a poor garret ? No angel would 
say that because the will of God had sent him 
to some hovel he had been dishonored. No 
angel would think that, because he had been 
sent to some church with a message to the 
saints, he had been specially honored. Their 
heaven is where God wants them to go. 

Places like heaven, — what music there is in 
that sentence ! 

We sit (mark that !), we " sit " in these heav- 
en-like places. That sounds like staying, you 
see ! 

We "sit together" in these places that are 
like heaven. Did you ever see people in a car ? 
They get in together, and though there are 
vacant seats elsewhere, they somehow wait for 
the person beside whom their companion has 



39 

taken his seat to move up, — they have been 
"together;" they came in "together;" they 
belong " together." The saints of the Lord are 
much the same. " Sitting together in heavenly 
places in Christ Jesus " (chap. 2 : 6). Kindred 
spirits draw together, and somehow or other we 
get things fixed and sit down together, then we 
are all right. 

Then we sit there, in the "heavenly places," 
" before Him." See how it all comes together ? 
We sit together in places like heaven "before 
God." I wish you to take that in. 

Then He " blesses us with all spiritual bless- 
ings." He lets us get " together," then he puts 
on us "all spiritual blessings." 

These "heavenly places" are the "holy 
places," — " that we should be holy and without 
blame before Him in love." Nobody can get 
into a heaven-like place without being holy. 
These heavenly places are the holy places. 

Then they are the safe places. Turn to the 
latter part of this chapter : " The riches of the 
glory of his inheritance in the saints . . . the 
exceeding greatness of his power to usward 
who believe." His power is not in the abstract ; 
the apostle is not just talking on this attribute 
of God as abstract. We sometimes look at the 
attributes of God as a man would at a far-dis- 
tant cold peak, but the apostle is not speaking 
in that way. "To usward who believe," — to 
believing people. " The exceeding greatness 



40 

of his power," — not abstractly considered, but 
" to usward who believe," — it is all directed to 
us. Like a great search-light, it goes all around 
and falls on us. The divine Almightiness is all 
gathered up and focalized and turned down on 
one or more poor souls. "To usward," — I do 
not care how things seem, God is on the side 
of His people. The " exceeding greatness " of 
Divine power is toward believers. 

What is the nature of this power? . . "Ac- 
cording to the working of His mighty power 
which He wrought in Christ when He raised 
Him from the dead." This " exceeding great " 
divine power, "to usward who believe," is 
" according to the working of His power which 
He wrought in Christ when He raised Him 
from the dead." Marvelous ! But it is not my 
talk. There are just three things in this power 
which He wrought in Christ: He "raised Him 
from the dead," — that is the power that wrought 
in Christ ; so, the " exceeding greatness of that 
power that" raised Him from the dead is " to 
usward who believe." It is the same power 
that raised Christ from the dead that raises our 
souls from the death of sin into the newness of 
spiritual and resurrection life. Not a particle of 
difference. Then this power not only raised 
Christ from the dead, but it " set Him at God's 
right hand," in those "heavenly places," those 
that these are like, "far above all principality 
and power and might and dominion, and every 



41 

name that is named, not only in this world, but 
in that which is to come," and that same power 
that put Him there raises us from the death of 
sin, and puts us in those heaven-like places here. 
Exactly the same power. The idea is of secu- 
rity, of safety. The idea is that of taking Christ 
out of the grave, and lifting Him " above all 
principality and power," etc. That same power 
that did that is "to usward that believe. " It 
makes us to sit down in these places that are 
like heaven, in perfect safety. " And hath put 
all things under His feet," — the devil downed ! 
The accuser of the brethren downed ! 

O, I get sick of hearing so much of " the 
great opposition we encountered." Opposi- 
tion ! What is opposition to God ? What is 
the good of talking about it ? Get further on ! 
Keep prayed up ! The idea of taking these 
oppositions of man into account when God 
takes the very same power that put all things un- 
der Christ's feet to put all things under our feet ! 
We had better take the Bible in, with its full 
scope, with its staggering assurances, and let 
us, like Abraham, " not stagger at the promise 
through unbelief;" but, like him, let us claim 
them, and take it all for granted. The heavenly 
places are the holy places, and the holy places 
are the safe places. All that we have to do is 
to put ourselves in the divine hands, and He 
makes us holy, and brings us over and sets us 
down in these heaven-like places, and then He 



42 

gives us things like heaven. This is not forcing 
Scripture. I have been there. I have " sat 
down together before God," with some people 
in places like heaven, and I have had foretastes 
of heaven, things like heaven. I do not know it 
because it is in the Bible, but because it is in my 
heart. What a grand thing to get into the hol- 
low of the divine hand, and be made holy, and 
then to be set down in those places ! It is like, 
as Brother Inskip said, getting in an elevator. 
If we will just believe that the same power is in 
that elevator that took up hundreds of people, 
it will take us up, — we will get there without ef- 
fort. Let us get in ! There is no other way so 
easy, for "there is no other name given under 
heaven among men, whereby we must be 
saved. Glory ! 



43 



OUR MARVELOUS SALVATION. 

June 28, 1894. 

Text, Romans 10: 12. 

" In honor preferring one another." 

Is there any other philosophy, is there any 
other religion, is there any other Bible that 
contains anything like that sentiment ? I do 
not think you can find that anywhere else, 
either in word or in deed. Who can reach that 
but unselfish souls ? Who can reach that but 
entirely sanctified souls ? Who can reach that 
but those that love the Lord their God with all 
their heart, with all their soul, with all their 
mind, with all their strength ? 

We talk about pure disinterestedness. Many 
believe its realization to be impossible in this 
world. St. Paul alluded to this almost univer- 
sal self-interest in Phil. 2 : 20 : " For I have no 
man like-minded, who will naturally care for 
your state. For all seek their own, not the 
things which are Jesus Christ's." 

But he had one man, for he was speaking 
about this man in this chapter ; a man that 
cared not altogether or principally for his own 
things, but more for those of other people. 

He also gives us Christ's example : " Let 
this mind be in you, which was also in Christ 
Jesus," etc. (Phil. 2: 3—1 1). 



44 

That is not human nature. That is super- 
naturalness. That is gracious naturalness. 
That is divine naturalness, that ceases to think 
of itself, and thinks for others, and spends for 
others, and gives precedence to others. Do 
you know an illustration of that ? John the 
Baptist was one when he said, " He must in- 
crease, but I must decrease." You say, " Yes, 
but that was said by a human being concerning 
himself and the God-man." Yet that same 
spirit can dwell in human hearts and think of 
everything and everybody before itself. Oh, 
blessed state ! Glorious state ! 

How is this done ? The grace of God comes 
into a human soul, and takes out all that love 
for the honor that comes from man, and by 
"the expulsive power of a new affection," puts 
in the love of the honor that comes from God 
only. The grace of God makes earth so 
small, and God and heaven and holiness and 
the honor that comes from God so large, that 
practically it becomes to it all in all. The only 
honor it wants, or will accept, is the honor that 
does not come from the north or the south, or 
the east or the west, but from Him alone that 
setteth up one and putteth down another. The 
grace of God gets into a man's soul, and causes 
him to want nothing else but the will of God. 

I dreamed last night that I was preaching to 
a large crowd, and I raised my voice and said, 
" Man shall not live by bread alone, but by 



45 



every word that proceedeth out of the mouth 
of God ! " And then, as it came with fresher 
meaning and wider scope, I raised my voice 
louder, and cried, " Man shall not live by bread 
alone, but by every word that proceedeth out 
of the mouth of God ! " And then, as it came 
with still greater force, I cried the third time 
with all my power of voice : " Man shall not 
live by bread alone, but by every word that 
proceedeth out of the mouth of God ! " We 
hang on the Divine Word, — on the Divine 
will. We are nothing and nobody. We are 
less than nothing and vanity. God becomes to 
us all-in-all. 

A man once said to me, — he was speaking 
of faith : " We talk about faith. Suppose I 
held in my hand that Book containing the 
' promises to pay ' of the Divine administration, 
and in my other hand I held a lot of green- 
backs, — the ' promises to pay ' of the United 
States Government, which would I part with? " 
I tell you, when our pockets are full of green- 
backs a sort of comfortable feeling comes in. 
But oh, this willingness to loose our hands 
upon every dollar, and upon everything earthly 
and human, and to "live not by bread alone, 
but by every word that proceedeth out of the 
mouth of God." When a man gets there, — 
what is this world to him ? Oh, it makes me 
weary and sick to see this scramble after posi- 
tion and power and preference ! Oh, the lowly 



46 

soul, that can go back on itself and find God 
there ! The lowly soul, that finds that the 
kingdom of God comes not with observation, 
not with outside pomp and show, but that finds 
that all it needs is not outside, but inside ! 
Get there, and you want nothing of earth but 
what God wants you to have. Our safety, our 
protection, our all is simply in what God wants 
for us. The Psalmist speaks of the "perfect 
will of God concerning us." I add to that, and 
say, " The present and perfect will of God 
concerning us." That sentence conveys to me 
not only the " perfect will of God " concerning 
me, but the present "perfect will of God " 
concerning me moment by moment. As I 
stand here to-day I am, — I believe I am, — in the 
present perfect will of God concerning me. I 
do not have to budge, backward or forward. 
I stand here now in the present and perfect 
will of God concerning me. Oh, get there, and 
you will live in the light of the glory of God. 
You have that belief in the Holy Ghost that 
delights you to sink out of sight. Oh, what a 
marvelous gospel this is of ours ! How it lifts 
us above everything else ! Oh, that God would 
bring us in full view of Jesus Christ, who 
" thought it not robbery to be equal with God ; 
but made Himself of no reputation," etc. 

This has been a marvelous day to me. It has 
been a day of quietness that could be heard, — 
is that a proper expression ? We speak of a 



47 



" darkness that can be felt." It has been a 
" quiet hallelujah " day to me. It seems to me as 
though I have been hardly touching this globe. 
It seems to me as though I am moving on in 
the "everlasting arms." Did you ever see a 
mother pick up her little babe ? She stoops 
down and gets it into her arms, and lifts it to 
her embrace. That is just the way I have felt 
the fingers of God getting around me, and lift- 
ing me into His "everlasting arms," and then 
upon the Divine bosom ; and then "between 
His shoulders ; " as though God has stooped 
down and lifted us in His "everlasting arms," 
and then rose with us. It seems as though my 
soul is resting down on the solid foundation. 
When the props are knocked away and we get 
down on God, we rest. 



48 



THE TRUE RELATIVES OF JESUS. 

Nov. 8, 1894. 

Texts, Matthew 12, commencing at verse 46, 
and Acts 21 : 4, 10-14. 

There are two charming scenes pictured here. 

Here is the first with Christ sitting in the 
midst. Around him is an outside circle. Here 
are his natural relations, trying to get through 
to him. In an inner circle are his disciples. 
When they told him that his mother and his 
brethren desired to speak with him, he asked, 
" Who is my mother, and my sisters, and my 
brethren ? " etc. Now, it was very delightful for 
those disciples in that inner circle to hear the 
Lord Christ preferring them to his own natural 
relations. That is to say, he included his moth- 
er and brethren if they also did the will of God. 
If they did not do the will of God, then this 
inner circle, if they do the will of God, take the 
place of and are preferred before natural rela- 
tions, and become his mother and his sisters and 
his brethren. That is very delightful to hear. 
We talk so much about the " sweet will of God." 
It is a very charming thing to talk about the 
sweet will of God. That is all right if we mean 
that, no matter what that will may be, simply 
because it is our Father's will, and whether 



49 

it is disagreeable or otherwise, it is sweet to 
us because it is the will of God. It is one thing 
for. us, in a sort of ethereal, transcendental, sub- 
limated sort of way to draw ourselves aside from 
the ordinary duties of life ; to get away from 
the dishes ; to dodge the slum work, garret 
work and all sorts of work that require self-de- 
nial, — it is easy, I say, to go into a parlor meet- 
ing and have a sort of "mutual admiration 
society," and to talk softly and sweetly of " the 
sweet will of God." That is one picture. 

Now turn over to this in the Acts. Here 
are disciples who tell Paul "not to go to 
Jerusalem," and they tell him by the Holy 
Ghost. It says so here. We cannot understand 
it maybe, but we must accept the fact. There are 
a thousand and one things that come to me that 
I cannot understand, but I know them just the 
same. Then here comes Agabus, and he gives 
an object lesson ; he loosens Paul's girdle and 
ties it around himself, and goes on to say, 
"Thus saith the Holy Ghost, So shall the Jews 
at Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this gir- 
dle," etc. It is one thing to accept the will of 
God, the " sweet will of God," on general prin- 
ciples ; it is another thing to accept the will of 
God with the possibility and the probability and 
with a fair certainty that that will of God will 
not always be pleasant, and what we want it to 
be ; with the probability that it may involve 
dangers, perhaps exile and death ; it is one 



50 

thing to accept the will of God with the idea 
that there is a fair probability of trouble ahead, 
but that is not the case yet, as is stated here, 
— here was the dead certainty. He was warned 
beforehand. " Do not go to Jerusalem ; you 
will be exiled ; danger and perhaps death await 
you." Now for a man, right in the teeth of all 
that, with these messages brought to him by the 
Holy Ghost, while his heart was breaking, for 
a man to put aside his best friends, with their 
broken hearts, and say that he would go on, 
and then for the disciples, in sheer desperation 
because their tears and warnings could not 
dissuade him, to chime in and say, " The 
will of the Lord be done ! The will of the Lord 
be done ! " — this is different. It is one thing to 
hear Christ claiming nearer relationship to us 
than to natural kindred, and quite another to 
have our fidelity to the will of God put to such 
a test ; to know that, while our hearts are break- 
ing and friends are holding on to us, that our 
fidelity will cause us just to gently push them 
aside and say, " I hear the call ; I see the divine 
eye ; the finger of God is pointing this way. It 
may involve troubles, losses, difficulties, dan- 
gers, persecution, martyrdom, — ah, to push 
through friends, and through tears, and through 
a man's own heart ! — that is holy heroism, that 
is what is meant by being "abandoned to the 
Holy Ghost." "Abandoned," without any bar- 
gaining; "abandoned," without any mental 



51 



reservation; "abandoned," with a boundless 
confidence in the divine wisdom ; in the divine 
goodness ; in the divine mercy ; in the divine 
love, and in the divine power. Like Abraham 
going out not knowing whither we go ; ready to 
leave friends and home and nation, and all that 
the human heart holds dear, and just to have 
an eye single to the glory of God. When we 
reach there, what a sublime faith ! what a 
sublime hope ! what a sublime independence ! 
It is putting our hand in the Holy Ghost's hand 
and saying : " Lead on, kindly Light ! Lead Thou 
me on." And yet even a Father must some- 
times allow his child to suffer. 

Here are then two pictures. In taking the 
one let us be sure we include the other. Let us 
get into the " whosoever " that is ready to accept 
the "whatsoever," and the "whensoever," and 
the "howsoever," and the "wheresoever." 

I do not often tell my experience, I know. I 
am leading a sort of a silent life. I cannot tell 
you how unreal material things seem to me. I 
cannot tell you how I wear this life " as a loose 
garment." I cannot tell you what a deep, in- 
tense and eternal reality there is in spiritual 
things. I cannot describe what it is to enjoy 
and to endure as seeing Him who is invisible. 
The invisible things of this world are the most 
powerful things in it. If you do not believe it, 
touch one of those wires when the power is on, 
you will not know what struck you, but you will 



52 

know that you are struck. (Brother Thompson ; 
You would hardly know that even.) I lie down 
at night on the bosom of God. Glory ! I live 
out in the country, and I wake up in the morn- 
ing and see the leaves quivering on the trees. 
I cannot account for them, but I know that my 
Father knows every leaf, that he keeps it in 
place and sustains it. I know that, with all the 
leaves that are still clinging to the trees, and all 
which are fading and slowly winging their way 
to the ground, — I know that with the ease that 
I can count one, the heavenly Father can count 
all. 

Rev. Isaac Naylor said, when we were 
speaking of these things the other day, " God 
does care for the leaves and the sparrows, but 
one is inanimate and the other without the 
power of morals ; but God only cares for us on 
conditions." True enough ! we may dwell too 
much on the paternal government of God — the 
Fatherhood of God — and ignore his rectoral and 
administrative government. We must meet the 
conditions on which God promises to care for 
us and save us. But to feel that we prefer his 
will above our own and above every other will, 
to feel that his will is our delightful law, to feel 
that elevated and refined and intense and 
absolute preference for the will of God brings 
us under the "whosoever." To feel that Christ 
recognizes us as nearer than brother, mother, 
father or sister, oh, what a life this is ! Do you 



• 53 

not see that to such in a few short years " the 
path of the just, which, as a shining light, is 
shining brighter and brighter unto that perfect 
day ? " Do you not see that to them the " Sun 
of Righteousness " never goes down ? Do you 
not see that we are in a path that is leading us 
on, through the darkness of this life, into eter- 
nal life ; the liorht of God ; the hVht of the great 
white throne ; the light that is not from a candle, 
because " there they have no need of a candle ; " 
but the light that comes from the central sun, 
the " Sun of Righteousness?" Oh, to hang on 
to God ! Oh, to climb upon the divine knee ! Oh, 
to get into the " Everlasting Arms ! " Oh, to get 
on the divine bosom ! Oh, to feel that whatever 
happens, happens only because he lets it ! 
When we get there we are in security. We are 
in his power, it is true, but in the power of 
One who " hath loved us with an everlasting 
love," and who loves us. as no one else can love 



54 



SELF-PITY. 

December J 3, 1894, 

Text; Mark 8: 31-35. 

What Peter said no doubt was well-meant, 
yet it was very severely rebuked : " Get thee 
behind me, Satan." Now, on the face of it, 
according to our translation, there does not seem 
to be so much in these words of Peter to call 
for such strong rebuke. The margin offers 
something of an explanation : " Pity thyself, 
Lord." Christ had been talking about going 
to Jerusalem, and about suffering many things, 
and then being killed. Peter comes in with 
this idea of self-pity. 

There are lots of self-pitiers in this world, 
and lots of people chime in with them, and help 
them out. We ought to sympathize with 
and encourage and even to pity other people, 
but whether it is a safe thing to get people to 
pitying themselves is a question. We will have 
to be a little on our guard with people who 
have gotten into a habit of self-pity, especially 
where self-pity stands in the way of the cruci- 
fixion of self and the resurrection into the spirit- 
ual life, and ultimately into the eternal life. 

Self-pity, however, does not stop people from 
talking about suffering. Christ talked about 
his. Yet when Peter came with that sugges- 
tion to pity himself, he told him to get behind 



55 

him ; that he savored more of the human than 
of the Divine. Immediately afterward he said : 
" Whosoever will come after me let him deny 
himself, and take up his cross and follow me. 
For whosoever will save his life shall lose it." 
It is not that a man should not care for his 
health or strength. What is meant here is a 
man giving way to self-pity when he ought to 
be a hero. It means that a man should not be 
trying to save himself from martyrdom and 
death when he ought to be willing to go to 
death for the sake of the Lord Jesus. There is 
work that cannot be done without undermining 
a man's health — I mean work for God where a 
man should not stop to consider his own life, 
but where he has reached such a pitch of heroism 
that, though he die, he is bound to do his duty. 
How our friends come at such times with, 
" Do not do this ! You will kill yourself." If 
we should take half the time to do half the 
things for self-preservation that they suggest, 
there would not be time to do anything else. 
Oh, there are subtle influences that gather 
about us that undermine us ! They come from 
our friends. No doubt Peter was Christ's 
sincere friend. I really pity him. It was very 
hard to be severely rebuked. Christ had just 
commended him. When we are commended 
we begin to get "uppish," and so we have to 
be taken down. "Thou art Peter, and on this 
rock will I build my church." Peter, on the 



56 

strength of his recent commendation, offers a 
little advice. He would keep Christ back from 
suffering and death. But that would keep him 
back from the resurrection which follows them. 

Everybody has a cross to bear. Everybody 
has a life to lay down. Everybody is under 
obligation in this respect to follow the Lamb. 
We must be on our guard and wise, not only 
in dodging Satan, but others who come to us in 
the shape of friends, like Peter. You see this 
advising of self-pity is a lack of good judgment. 
It is trying to give peace and hope and comfort 
and dissuasion where we ought to look the 
thing squarely in the face and see that it must 
be done. Many try to get others to be sancti- 
fied wholly by telling them, " This is a great 
privilege : you will never have any trouble ; the 
Lord will be on your side." That is no way to 
get anybody sanctified. 

Rev. Andrew Longacre once said that " there 
was a tendency in giving our experience to 
give the victory side only, so that people come 
to think there is no other side to it." But the 
grace of God is magnified in trial. That is 
"religion made easy." It is the easiness of 
God coming down to our every-day, common- 
place life, and making the trials the occasion 
for glorifying the grace He gives. That is all 
that religion is good for. 

I read the other day of a little child who, 
when some one was putting her to bed, and 



57 

said something to her about trying not to be so 
cross, she was right up in the bed in an instant. 
" Oh, when it's me it's ' cross,' but whenever 
it's you it's ' nervous ! ' ' We must call things 
by their right names. If a man is downright 
out of temper; or (looking at Friend Flitcraft) 
"tried," as you "Friends" put it, let him own 
up. Let him not call it " nervousness." Let 
us, no matter how weak and suffering we are ; 
no matter how body or mind or heart may en- 
dure, let us have the Christ-like Spirit that puts 
a friend, like Peter, behind our back, and re- 
fuses to be drawn from duty even by the 
prospect of death. 

I often think of Jesus in Gethsemane pray- 
ing three times : " Father, if it be thy will, let 
this cup pass from me." What suffering that 
must have been to draw such a prayer as that 
from Jesus Christ! Then followed: "Never- 
theless, not as I will." So also in that other 
passage He prayed, " Lord, save me from this 
hour," but then He goes on to remind Him- 
self, "Yet for this cause came I unto this 
hour." There Christ actually prays that He 
may be saved from this hour, when there seems 
to be immediately afterward a sort of self- 
recollection that He had quitted the bosom of 
the Father and the company of angels to come 
to this hour ; that the whole design of His in- 
carnation was to bring Him up to this hour ; 
and that, in asking to be saved from this hour, 



58 

He asked to be saved from the very thing He 
came for. 

In our religion we conquer by dying. In 
our religion we are saved by suffering In our 
religion we reach resurrection unto spiritual 
and eternal life by forgetting our life and 
giving up our life and consecrating ourselves 
in utter abandonment to God. It is the suffer- 
ing of Jesus that saves others. And in some 
sense we are called upon to suffer to save 
others, — He by atonement, but we by the 
necessity of the case. We have a right to 
talk about it. A little child, if he is hurt, finds 
some relief in saying " Ouch ! " We are not 
fools. It is not that we do not realize the full 
force of the things that come upon us. It is 
being saved in, through and out of the things. 

St. Paul says : " Do all things without mur- 
muring." That passage has been in my mind 
for years. We trip in that direction. It would 
be well to take account of our conversation, 
and see how much of it is made up of " mur- 
muring " against things and events and men 
and God. Oh,, what a sublimity of faith a man 
reaches when he can say, " Glory to God any- 
how ! " when a man can turn his suffering 
into the raw material for the manufacture of 
"glories." My soul is on fire. Glory! lam 
talking to you right out of my heart and my 
life. 

(Pausing a few moments the speaker closed 
by asking) — Shall we quit pitying ourselves ? 



59 



HUMILITY GREATER THAN LOVE. 

December 20, 1894, 

Text. — Matthew 18: 1-4. 

You remember how the 13th chapter of 1st 
Corinthians ends, where Paul speaks of " faith, 
hope and love ; but the greatest of these is love." 

Is there anything greater than love ? Look at 
the position that the Lord Jesus Christ gives to 
child-like humility ! " Who is the greatest in the 
kingdom of heaven? " Jesus set a little child 
in their midst, and then he goes on to say, 
" Except ye be converted, and become as little 
children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of 
heaven." 

Humility, according to this statement, is the 
greatest of all Christian graces. It is the 
foundation of all Christian graces. It is the 
grace without which no other Christian grace 
can be. It is interwoven into the very warp 
and woof of religion. It is the essential part 
of conversion. 

It is not only the greatest in this respect, but 
it makes the possessor of it the greatest of all. 
I say that humility is not only the greatest of all 
graces by the relation it holds to all other 
graces, and by its own intrinsic worih, but it 
makes the one who possesses it the greatest of 
all. There is no greatness in the kingdom of 



60 

God, or outside the kingdom of God, that is 
like the greatness of childlike goodness. That 
is, the farther a man goes down the farther he 
goes up. That is, the less there is, of a man, 
the more there is of him. The humility that is 
unconscious of every other grace it has, includ- 
ing this grace also, that is the greatest grace of 
all. We speak about being humble. The 
farther we go on, the deeper we go in, the more 
comprehensive view we have of Christian truth, 
the more this grace will grow upon us. We 
speak about humility being self-forgetful. We 
speak about the absence of self-consciousness 
in humility. We say that humility does not 
know that itself is around. I believe there are 
experiences ; I believe there are states of reli- 
gious life ; I believe that there is a phase of 
personal piety ; I believe that there is this 
frame of mind and condition of soul that is not 
temporary, but lasts, by the grace of God, for- 
ever, as the normal condition of the human 
soul, in which the heart, while it is truly 
humble, is so humble that it forgets its own 
humility. That is humility. The greatest peo- 
ple of all are the people that have the least con- 
sciousness of their greatness. While they pos- 
sess the grace of humility in its ripeness and 
fulness, and everybody else can see it and feel 
it, yet they have got somewhere where they 
never have before thought so, meanly of them- 
selves. 






61 

To-day I was crossing the street, and there 
seemed to come in such a view of myself. 
When I considered all my advantages from my 
youth up, what a father I had, what a mother I 
had, and growing up on such spiritual diet as I 
did, it was about as much as I could endure to 
endure myself. There seemed so little of any- 
thing for self-congratulation. 

I do believe that there are those conditions, 
those experiences where, while the things are 
there, and others know that they are there, and' 
while in one sense there is the witness of the 
Holy Ghost that we are fully saved, yet it seems 
such a wonderful thing, for who or what are we ! 

While that is so in advanced spiritual life, 
yet at the same time, for people to take the 
ground that humility comes of. itself ; that it has 
nothing of the human will or cultivation about 
it, but is all from God — that is a mistake. Look 
at the peculiarity of this phraseology ; " Whoso- 
ever therefore shall humble himself." It may be, 
as we get very far along, where it is so ripe 
and rich and full that we are not conscious of 
the effort to be humble, and to keep humble as 
we once were, we are in a chronic condition of 
humility and forgivingness. Yet I believe in 
the beginning of the religious life, in convic- 
tion, the proud soul there goes down in the 
dust ; there the proud man comes to see that 
"he is nothing at all, and Jesus Christ is all 
and in all ; " there a man eats his own words, 



62 

and confesses before God and man that he is 
verily guilty of sinning against the whole law. 
" Whosoever therefore shall humble himself!' 
That is what we call gracious habit. Habit is a 
strong thing. He gets in the habit of being 
" nothing at all." After a man has humbled 
himself and allowed God to humble him, the 
thing keeps on. As he abases himself, he is 
exalted. That is the paradox in the religious 
life. 

Some say, "I want to be somebody in the 
world, or in the church, or even in the holiness 
cause." Well, how easy that is ! Why, that is 
what St. Paul says, — God chooses the nobodies, 
those that are nothing at all, to bring to naught 
the things that are. It is the divine choice. It 
is " the things that are not " that he chooses to 
bring to naught " the things that are." So that 
God, who created everything out of nothing, 
can use us for the accomplishment of his 
purpose. All our shamefacedness comes from 
the fact that we are not humble. Can we get 
to this point where somehow we humble our- 
selves, and then can we reach a point where it 
becomes a habit, and then can we reach a still 
further point where God almost exclusively 
does the thing for us right straight along ? 
When I get talking about these things I feel 
ashamed. I join Brother Thomson's oft-repeated 
exhortation and testimony about being humble, 
and asking us to join him. 



63 



GROUNDS OF PERSONAL TRUST. 

December 27, 1894.- 

Text. Acts 27 : 21-25, and 35. 

There are three grounds on which St. Paul 
bases his confidence : 

The first is, "Whose I am." There is no 
stronger, no better basis for personal confidence 
in God than a thorough persuasion that we are 
entirely consecrated and entirely sanctified to 
God. A man must believe in God before he 
can believe in himself. A man must believe in 
himself before he can thoroughly believe in God. 
What I mean to say is : Until a man is per- 
suaded that he has given himself wholly to 
God, that his consecration is full, and that he is 
true throughout and candid with God and man, 
until he reaches that point, he cannot believe in 
God as he can after he is conscious that he has 
given himself and all his concerns over into the 
hand of God, " Whose I am." To know that 
by my own personal, cheerful, voluntary devo- 
tion of myself to God, I hand all that I am, 
all that I have, all that I ever expect to be and 
have, over to God. When a man does that he is 
on "believing ground," sure. We talk about 
getting on believing ground ; we try to urge 
people to believe, — " Only believe, believe ; if 
you will only believe, the answer will come ; 



64 

you must believe," etc. In so doing we are 
working on the wrong string. They have to 
be consciously, wholly consecrated to God, and 
then you do not have to tell them to believe, — 
" it believes itself." All this is an easy, namby- 
pamby sort of way of trying to get people saved ! 
Ah, it is getting every one into a condition 
where he can say, " I know that I am wholly 
consecrated ; I know that I have laid all upon 
the altar," — when a man gets there, where he 
can say this truly and consciously, he will do 
the believing without any direction or help from 
you. "Whose I am ! Whose I am ! " Oh, this 
conviction, this persuasion, this witness of the 
Holy Ghost and the witness of our own spirits 
that we are the Lord's ; that we belong to Him 
supremely, fully ! When we reach that point 
that is one ground of confidence. 

Then there is another ground for Paul's con- 
fidence : "Whom I serve." To know, not 
simply that I belong to God, but that I am serv- 
ing God. In all that I do, in all things, under all 
circumstances, to be able to say, " I am serving 
God." That is another ground for confidence. 
No man can say, " Whom I serve," until he can 
say, " Whose I am." A man must be before he 
can do. A man must have purity before he can 
have" power." This making "The Baptism 
with the Holy Ghost for Service " independent 
of the cleansing of the heart from sin, making 
the point on "power" rather than on purity, 



65 



and on the fact that our experience is right, — 
that is the fallacy of this day. Any one who 
ignores purity as the very essential point, the 
very foundation of " The Baptism of Power for 
Service," has missed his way. While a man 
may have, to some extent, a useful life, while he 
has preached to others, and success has, in a 
measure, attended his efforts, the thing does 
not somehow work right in his own heart and 
experience. The secret of success does not 
seem to come to him. Purity of heart precedes 
" power for service." 

Then, the third ground for his confidence was 
the God-sent angel. 

When it comes to the sweep of his confidence, 
it was not only in regard to himself that he felt 
it, but all who sailed with him. God had a 
gracious plan concerning him, and the Divine 
protection would be over him until that plan 
was fully carried out. You say that is Calvin- 
ism ? Well, God has His plan, nevertheless, 
and God has His purpose nevertheless, and 
God will develop that purpose and protect all 
instrumentalities until its accomplishment, until 
the plan is fully carried out. 

The strength of his confidence is shown in 
this verse (25), "I believe God, that it shall be 
even as it was told me." The winds were 
howling ; the waves were rising all around that 
vessel. Everybody was in the utmost terror, 
yet such was Paul's confidence in this One 



66 

" whose he was " and " whom he served," that 
right in the midst of the storm he stood break- 
ing bread, and telling them to eat, and eating 
it himself. That is a proof of faith when we 
can stand right in the midst of the storm, when 
people all around us are weeping and giving 
way, when people come to us and cling to us, 
and try to get the benefit of our personal trust 
in God. Under such circumstances as that, for 
a man not only to profess faith and confidence, 
but to back it up by such trustful, calm, quiet 
behaviour, that is confidence. Belief that God 
had a plan and would carry it out was the 
secret of Paul's serenity. He not only pro- 
fessed his faith, but he backed it up by his 
behavior. 

St. Paul believed in that angel. People say, 
" Oh, well, if an angel would come I would not 
have any difficulty in believing an angel ! " Are 
you sure of that ? You know Jesus said, that 
if they rejected the written Word of God they 
would not believe though one were sent from 
the dead. " Oh, if an angel would come ! If I 
had a vision ! If God would only come right 
into my life and get hold of me in such a way 
that I could not doubt, I would believe." 
. We have God's own written Word, and that 
is confirmed to us by divine oath, and by 
universal experience and testimony. There is 
no grander exhibition of faith than was given by 
that centurion when he said, " Speak the word 



67 

only ; you say that my servant shall be healed ; 
that is all I want. I do not need to go home to 
see how things are getting on ; speak the word 
only." The grandest thing in this world is to 
get beyond sign-seeking and sight-seeing. 
People say that " seeing is believing." It is not. 
Seeing is knowing. A man may, however, 
gladly accept any sign that God chooses to 
give, for sign-receiving and sign-seeking are two 
different things. I will take all the signs that 
God chooses to grant me, but I will ask for 
none. I will not put "signs" in the place of 
fact, nor "sight" in the place of confidence in 
God. In my early Christian history I fell into 
that snare. But, afterward, I read that every- 
thing grows out of faith, not feeling. That is 
what the Scripture says, " The just shall live by 
faith," or, "The justified by faith shall live," — 
it amounts to the same thing. I would rather 
have the Bible than an angel, or some one 
coming to me from the dead. I would rather 
have His simple naked word than all those signs 
coming to me. I think that when God sees we 
are going to stick to the line of faith, he is not 
afraid to trust us with a few " signs," but when 
we go to asking " signs " he will hold them 
back until faith is a little stronger. You believe 
God, and believe God's word, and there will be 
" something to show for it." 



A PROSPEROUS JOURNEY. 

January 3, 1895. 

Text, Romans i : 10-13. 

Holiness is a far-reaching word. Perhaps a 
more definite expression is that of " entire sanc- 
tification." . 

Entire sanctification, as an abstract doctrine, 
is a very wholesome doctrine, a very profitable 
doctrine, a charming doctrine, and a doctrine 
very full of comfort ; that is in the abstract (if 
holiness can be in the abstract) ; but then it is 
better when it comes down into our deep, heart- 
felt, ever-gladdening experiences. 

Then, there is such, a thing as entire sanctifi- 
tion. applied ; practical entire sanctification ; 
having entire sanctification coming down to our 
everyday common-place living ; having it not 
only in our hearts, but also in our homes. The 
Psalmist says, " I will walk within mine house 
with a perfect heart," If we had more of that 
home holiness, what a telling thing it would be ! 
It is nice to talk in these meetings, but if a 
man's wife and children and servants, yes, 
especially the servants, are present, and can 
witness to the truth of his profession, it is a 
wonderful thing. "Whether, therefore, ye eat 
or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the 
glory of God." , Whatsoever? Do you think 



69 

that such a thing can possibly be ? Eating and 
drinking to the glory of God. 

The apostle is here talking about making 
visits. The visits of an entirely sanctified soul 
cannot be along the line of ordinary visitation ; 
not by any means. The apostle had wanted to 
come to them before, but the Lord would not 
let him. But here he prays, "If by any means 
he might be permitted a prosperous journey by 
the will of God to come unto them." 

Now, what is a really " prosperous journey " ? 

There are two things by which the apostle 
indicates a "prosperous journey." 

One is, that it is the result of pleading 
prayer. I wonder how many visits we would 
make, and what kind of visits they would be, if 
we prayed over them ? Look how strongly he 
speaks : " If by any means." It was an earnest, 
importunate, pleading prayer. It does not take 
long to make a pleading prayer. 

The next way he indicates a prosperous jour- 
ney is, that it is "by the will of God." Is it 
possible that all our visits can be by the will of 
God ? Is it possible that we are to have divine 
guidance down into such things as where we 
go and among whom we go ? Why it is aston- 
ishing how careless we are in this matter ! 
Not only worldly people, but even among relig- 
ious people this indifference to religious visita- 
tion is felt. Oh for a man to feel that he is "a 
good man" in the scriptural sense, and that 



70 

"the steps of a good man are ordered of the 
Lord." What a walk that would be ! That 
would be walking with God as Enoch did. 
Wonderfully so ! No haphazard stepping. I 
used to live opposite an insane asylum, and I 
watched the inmates as they walked around the 
grounds. I thought there. was something odd 
about their movements. Then I watched other 
people, and was surprised that they walked 
much the same. Ah, the difference is internal, 
not external. It is divine guidance. It is God 
leading us where we go and to whom we should 

The first object of a "prosperous journey" 
is Christian association : "I long to see you." 
I once got under temptation. I thought I must 
stick to business and must not indulge myself 
in going too much with good people. I felt I 
ought to keep to the Lord, but I must not go 
to too many good meetings, and wander around 
among good people. But. a man could come 
to this meeting, and out of the little time spent 
here he could get such help from holy associa- 
tion that the fragrance and beauty of it would 
spread itself all over his week ? You remem- 
ber when the woman broke the alabaster box 
the odor went all through the room. There is 
a fragrance in saintliness. There is .sweetness 
in holy association. And there is, in the Chris- 
tian's heart, an intense desire to be with those 
who are wholly the Lord's, — with those who 



71 

think and feel and talk and act as we do. I am 
glad that the Lord does not want us to go to 
heaven alone. Religion provides for our social 
principles, and it is our right and our desire to 
be as much as we can, without neglecting other 
duties, with those who are wholly the Lord's. 

But it will not do for a man to neglect his 
business or his home, or run away from other 
duties merely to get into good meetings. In 
this instance it was not mere good feeling or 
delightful association St. Paul wanted, but the 
apostle "desired to impart unto them some 
spiritual gift." Perhaps that "gift" implied 
something which is beyond our power to be- 
stow ; something on the miraculous order. But 
while it meant that, it meant also the imparta- 
tion of spiritual help unto those with whom he 
wanted to be associated. There should be a 
desire on our part, in every visit, to impart 
some " spiritual gift." Oh, this dispensing of 
spiritual helps ! Everywhere we go, we go 
"by the will of God," and in " answer to 
prayer," not only to enjoy spiritual society, but 
to carry some "spiritual gift." Jesus gets in 
somewhere. People do not say of us, "Why, 
I never knew that that man was a Christian ! " 
It is like ointment, its odor spreads all over the 
house. There is a possibility of carrying that 
atmosphere wherever we go. Oh, this intense, 
perpetual spirituality that is in us and only gets 
out of us in delio-htful fragrance I 



72 

Is this all ? Oh, no ! It was not simply this 
association St. Paul wanted, and to impart 
some spiritual gift, but his ultimate object was 
"to the end ye may be established." This was 
what the will of God was in that visit, and what 
the spiritual gift was for. It was not something 
that only remained while he remained. It re- 
mained after he was gone and established them. 

But is that all he desired ? Not quite. He 
goes on to say : " That I may be comforted 
together with you by the mutual faith both of 
you and me." Is not that a beautiful verse? 
Here was this great, strong-minded and strong- 
hearted apostle ; here was this man who could 
go from his home and nation and friends into 
solitude and stay there ; yet when approaching 
Rome, when he saw the brethren coming to 
greet him, " he thanked God and took courage ; " 
he could stand solitude, but it was a comfort to 
him to be welcomed. Think of this great man 
of God going into some humble place and get- 
ting comfort out of an interview like that. 

Just one more thing he desired : " That I 
might have some fruit among you as among 
others." Oh these fruitful experiences ! Oh these 
fruitful ministries ! Oh these fruitful lives ! Oh 
these fruitful visits ! Oh those fruitful journeys 
that grow out of the will of God ; that are 
guided by the will of God ; so that, wherever a 
man goes there is something in his look or his 
words or his manner that makes him a perpet- 



73 



ual sunshine and blessing ! There are some 
pastors who save more souls by their private 
ministries than by their public preaching ; 
preachers who go into the work-shops and 
homes ; and wherever they go, souls are saved, 
and they get fruit. 

To sum up : Holiness in everyday life ; holi- 
ness in our visitations ; holiness in answer to 
prayer ; holiness by the will of God ; holiness 
that comforts our own souls and others' souls, 
and everybody within reach. 

Lord, get us beyond our useless visiting, and 
get the best out of us for God and souls ! 



74 



THE BIBLE IN HOT HEARTS. 

February I, 1895. 

Text, Mark 4:15. 

Notice the peculiarity of that expression, 
" The Word was sown in their hearts" It was 
not that the Word had simply got into their 
ears, nor that it had simply found lodgment in 
their brains. The Word may get into our ears 
and into our brains, and it does not amount to 
much. Nor was it that it had simply got into 
their consciences, which is better than getting 
into the ears or into the brain ; for when a man 
becomes what we call deeply conscientious, 
scripturally conscientious, he is pretty far along. 
I do not mean a sore conscience, that is a 
torment. I mean a tender, rightly-instructed 
conscience, a scripturally-instructed conscience ; 
for a conscience not founded on the Scriptures, 
and uninstructed by the Holy Ghost, is a 
merely human thing ; it is a dangerous thing ; 
it is not a divine or a scriptural thing. A man's 
conscience may misguide him. One man's 
conscience may tell him to throw his child into 
the river, to thus procure his own salvation ; 
and another's may tell him to do things as wide 
apart from the Scriptures as Hell is from 
Heaven. Nothing is safe but a scriptural con- 
science. It is a glorious thing when the Word 
of God gets into a man's conscience. It crushes 



75 

the conceit and self-complacency out of him. 
But, after all, it may stop there. The Word of 
God may even get into our lives. There are 
some professedly religious people who are the 
greatest drudges in this world. They are legal- 
ists, self-righteous people, ignorant of God's 
righteous way of saving men, going about to 
establish their own righteousness. Bishop 
Taylor likens this "going about" to the blind 
horse in the mill, " oroino- about," around and 
around, "going about" tied to a post. Now I 
say that the Word of God may get into a man's 
life, and impress his behavior ; but our text 
says, "The Word of God was sown in their 
hearts!' That is, they loved the Word of God. 
They had gone that far. 

Satan's great aim is to get the Word out of 
our ears and brains and consciences, and out of 
our lives, but, above all, he wants to get it out of 
our hearts. I would not give two cents for a man's 
conscience that is not backed up by his heart. 
Love is the most potent word in the English 
lanorua^e. " Ouorht " tells us what we should 
do : love gives us power to do it. Satan knows 
that, and so he wants to get the Word of God 
out of our hearts. 

When I speak of loving God's Word, I mean 
that we can love his precepts as much as we love 
his promises. If we do not love his precept as 
much as we love his promise, we never get the 
promise. I say to my child, "Do this, and I 



76 

will give you that. If you do not do it, I cannot 
give you the other." If I am a true parent, I 
will keep my word. We must love God's 
precepts as much as his promises, his com- 
mands as much as what are sometimes called 
the sweet, deep passages of God's Word. Some 
take the Bible and weep and sigh, and want to 
know " how you get so much out of the Word, 
and seem to feast on it, while / starve ? " They 
want the cake without paying the penny — that 
is about the amount of it. We can feast on the 
Scriptures if we pay the price. 

The Psalmist says, " Oh, how I love thy 
law ! " H6w is it that we love the" law of God ? 
It is the " perfect law of liberty." Is that not a 
singularly mixed-up thing? You may say, "I 
thought that a law was to restrict a man." It is 
the "law of liberty." Where there are no just 
laws, how talk about liberty ? There is no 
liberty, but licentiousness of every kind. It is 
the liberty of law, and God's law is "the per- 
fect law of liberty ;" therefore Christ says, "If 
the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free 
indeed." Sometimes a man or woman will 
spring up in meeting and say, "I am free in 
Christ Jesus ; " but do you know how much 
there is in a sentence like that? It means that 
"this is the victory that overcometh the world, 
even our faith." 

The trouble with some of us is, unscriptural 
ears and brains. If a man has not scriptural 



77 

brains, if his brain is not crowded with the 
Bible, he is dangerous to himself and to others.. 
Brilliancy and Bible should go together. We 
may have unscriptural brains and lives and 
hearts. Some say, " I do not have to read my 
Bible any more. I have the Divine Holy Ghost. 
'The Word killeth, and the Spirit giveth life.' 
I am farther on than you, " etc. How did you 
ever find out that there was a Holy Ghost 
except by the Bible ? How do you know any- 
thing about spirituality except as you get it in the 
Scriptures ? You never knew it or felt it until 
you got it from there. It is like a man who, at 
first, cannot hobble around, and when he gets 
cured, throws away the Bible as he would a pair 
of old crutches. Let a man keep to the Word 
of God, and he will not strike the rocks on 
either side. The old devil wants to get the 
Word out of our hearts. Just let anybody try 
to separate you from the Word of God, and you 
may make up your mind that you "smell 
sulphur." Mark that ! I tell you the devil is 
around. Oh, I have not lived in this world as 
many years as I have, without seeing many 
shipwrecks on that shore ! The devil does not 
want the Word in our consciences and brains 
and lives, but he knows that if he gets it out of 
the heart, he will get it out of all the rest. 
'• Satan cometh immediately." Brethren and 
sisters, Scripture never drops without Satan 
seeing it, and he will not let it lie there long if 



78 



he can get it away. Mark that ! " Immediately' 1 
Oh how quickly he moves ! Some people get 
the Word of God in their hearts to-day and they 
are all on fire, and to-morrow, what ails them ? 
Well, you see that Satan knew it would not do 
to leave that Bible-word in their hearts, and so 
he comes in immediately and snatches it out. 
Oh let us get the Bible in our hearts, and then 
look out for him ! There are birds that are 
away up in the air, and in a moment they are 
down to the ground, and up again, so quickly 
do they move. Satan fell from heaven once 
like lightning. He is good at getting down 
quickly and good at getting the Word out of 
our hearts. O that we might love God's Word. 
I tell you, if a man gets a good piece of meat 
on the wood, and makes a good fire of the wood 
about, the meat, no bird will come down to pick 
it off. Let us get our souls on fire with the 
Word, and the Word on fire in our souls. 
Glory be to God ! I think that is the reason the 
Bible sticks to me so. I think that it gets my 
soul so hot, that when Satan looks down he 
thinks, " I guess I had better not go down there, 
I would get scorched. I guess I will let him 
have that precious piece." Oh for hot hearts, 
hearts filled with Scriptural spirituality, and then 
Satan will not come down " immediately," and 
take it away. 



GOD GIVES TO THOSE WHO HAVE. 

February 15, 1895. 

Text, Mark 4 : 25, 33. 

Now, if one rich man sees another rich man 
cominor toward him he does not be^in to fumble 
in his pocket for money to give the other rich 
man. He knows that the other has money 
enough to get all that he needs. But if he sees 
a poor man with ragged clothing coming along 
he says to himself " I mus't give this poor 
fellow something to help him along," and down 
goes his hand into his pocket. That is the way 
we work, and the only limit to that style of 
giving is, that if we happen to know the poor 
man, and know that he will take the money 
only to drop it into the nearest rum hole, or 
waste it in some way, then we will hold on to 
it. That is the human way. 

The divine way is just the opposite. It is not 
to the spiritually poor, but to the spiritually 
rich, that God keeps on giving, for the simple 
reason that if we are spiritually poor, it is our 
own fault. There is always a moral tinge to our 
spiritual poverty. It may be our misfortune it 
we are poor in this world's goods, but not so 
with spiritual poverty. If I lack faith it is not 
altogether a matter of brain, but it is a matter 



80 



of heart,, for it is " with the heart man believeth 
unto righteousness." That is a peculiar expres- 
sion. We are apt to say, "It does not matter 
what a man believes, just so his heart is right." 
The fact is, a man never believes right unless 
his heart is right. We talk about " pure reason " 
and "pure logic" and "pure faith." They are 
the rarest of all things in this world. Christ 
says that we "judge after the flesh ; " that is, 
our lower nature — our "flesh " — bewilders, per- 
verts, betrays and dominates our higher nature 
— our judgment. Of the man who is in spirit- 
ual darkness, it cannot be said that it is his 
misfortune to be so. Jesus says, " Ye love dark- 
ness rather than light because your deeds are 
evil." 

God gives to the one who has ! Oh just to 
think ! The piling up of our spiritual riches is 
the reason we shall have more. It is a thing 
that gathers on itself. Is that not a wonderful 
thing ? The more we have, the more we get. 
There is a tendency in money to fly together. 
It is the tendency of riches to heap up, and in 
morality and religion and spirituality, how the 
pennies and the silver and the gold fly together ! 
How the Bible flies together ! How experience 
and practice fly together ! The more we get, 
the more we are getting. 

The measure by which this is given is found 
in the second text: "And with many such 
parables spake he the word unto them, as they 



81 



were able to bear it!' "Oh," says one, " if I 
only had the mental ability to take God's Word, 
or if I had only studied it as I ought to have 
done!" Why, a man may read the Bible 
through a hundred times, and it may just go 
through his brain like a sieve. Christ here was 
talking Bible to them ; but he was talking it to 
them " as they were able to bear it." This abil- 
ity is not altogether mental or natural or 
acquired ability. They are all included, of 
course, but in religion it is not so much a mat- 
ter of time or acquisition or natural ability, but 
it is a matter of gracious ability. 

I can find you people in this room who know 
more Bible, and are richer in what Bible they 
have, than some who have been professionally 
studying it all their lives. The Holy Ghost in 
the twinkling of an eye can send through my 
brain and soul, and has done it hundreds of 
times, light that I had never received until that 
hour ! There comes an enduement, an enlighten- 
ment, a sort of an inspiration, a sort of a revel- 
ation, a sort of an opening up — just as Christ, 
on the way to Emmaus that day, took the old, 
old Scriptures they had been studying all their 
lives, and in the short walk ftom Jerusalem to 
Emmaus showed them more than they had ever 
known before. 

How God does delight to put into the willing 
soul the riches of his Word that gives light 
and love and power ! If we have we will get. 



82 

The richer we are, the richer we will keep get- 
ting. The one who is farthest along, the one 
who is richest in Bible, richest in experience, 
richest in life, richest in communion with God, 
— the spiritual millionaire here to-day, ah, the 
Lord can take your million and pop another 
million on it as quick as a flash. What does it 
matter to him if he gives you five or ten, or 
thousands and thousands, or millions and 
millions ? He just piles it on. It is not the 
''poor me's " that get more ; it is the rich me's. 
No wonder that the Romish idea that one 
must go through penance to get favors from 
God makes those who accept such idea as blue 
as indigo. If you get the Bible idea it is, 
"Rejoice evermore! In everything give 
thanks ! " It stops grumbling and fret and 
complaining. My mother's pantry door stood 
open, not a key in it, and I could go at any 
time of the day or night and get all I wanted. 
The Lord does not keep his pantry all locked 
up for fear the good things will not hold out. 
He keeps the door open. The more you get, 
the more you want, and the more you have. 
Let us double up, let us not wait to get into a 
mental, natural or acquired ability, but let God 
give us now a gracious ability, so that our 
million may become two, in grace and in God. 



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